Untitled Communion

Untitled Communion creates space for catharsis and hope within our current political climate. Without words, it encourages us to scream, breathe and fortify ourselves for the struggle ahead. The gods pictured draw on imagery that is surreal, religious and childish, and usher in our inner strength.

Directed by Nancy Keystone in collaboration with Critical Mass Performance Group

REDCAT NOW Fest 2017

Next to Normal

East West Players

Directed by Nancy Keystone.

Photos: Michael Lamont

Paraíso Diseñado

Paraíso Diseñado/ Paradise by Design explores the moment before we die through three distinct worlds, reality, a performative world, and a world beyond the rules of time. The characters in reality, Ella, Uno and El Otro, are planning their collective suicide as a protest against global systemic thinking. We used historical moments of radical protest to inspire the clothing choices of the piece. The elephant was my early and intuitive impulse responding to the idea of a judge. I was specifically interested in the elephant as a predominating force for its huge size and social nature. The clothes then situate the performer as a caricature of specific holders of white, american and/or institutional power - the judge, the teacher and the gun shop owner.

Written by David Gaitan. Directed by Martin Accosta.

US Premiere. CalArts Center for Performance.

Photos: Spencer Sturr

Manon

Our version of Massenet's Manon, led into a strange and opulent world, where the rich aspire to statuesque architectural presence and succumb to pleasure readily. Manon tries to keep up, using any means possible to gain power which she hopes will provide the key to happiness.

Directed by Stephanie Havey. Produced by Curtis Institute of Music.

Photos: Corey Weaver and Brandon McNeel

AMERYKA

WINNER: Stage Raw Theater Awards, Production of the Year, 2017

NOMINATED: Ovation Awards, Best Costume Design (Intimate), 2017

AMERYKA charts a course through 250 years of astonishing connections between the United States and Poland, in an epic exploration of the universal human longing for freedom and justice. My design uses contemporary objects like belts and airline blankets to insinuate the period garments represented. This holds our current moment accountable for past histories.

Written and directed by Nancy Keystone in collaboration with Critical Mass Performance Group. Workshops designed by Sara Brown.

Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles.

Photos: Patti McGuire and Turner Munch

Evita

Bing Theater, USC

Directed by Tim Dang

Photos: Craig Schwartz

Riot/Rebellion

To honor the 50th Anniversary of the Watts Rebellion, we used interviews from the community intertwined with spoof, ridicule and history to get to the heart of what caused the Watts uprising in 1965 and its continued significance.

Directed by Deena Selenow. Produced by Watts Village Theater Company.

Los Angeles Theatre Center

Photos: Amber LaRosa

The Other Side

An immersive dance.

Conceived and choreographed by Sophia Stoller.

World Premiere, Gramercy Studios.

Photos: Chris Chavez, Alfredo Montes, John Sisley

The Bumps

The Bumps is as much an inquiry on theater-making as a play. Three pregnant performers play the pregnant characters in the production, creating an economy for pregnant actors where none exists, and a model for how to fold the needs of pregnant people into any work context.

My design explores the following questions: What types of clothes can accommodate continually changing bodies? Can we escape the maternity industry that entices pregnant people to purchase a whole new wardrobe? How can we look to images of our own mothers' clothing to uncover myths about how pregnant women are represented from the 1980s until today? If we incorporate or repurpose clothing from our mothers does that translate into a different personal connection onstage? Can the circularity and cycles of fashion help us understand the ways in which memory and the past surface continually in the present?

The Bumps is a National Performance Network production and was presented in workshop at The Skirball Center. It was also filmed for an upcoming BBC documentary series on utopian art. A reading to benefit Planned Parenthood will be presented Aug. 14 & 15, 2017 at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY.

Written by Rachel Kaunder Nalebuff. Directed by Deena Selenow.

Photos: Arianne Alizio and Amber LaRosa

Future Memory

Live Arts Los Angeles

Choreographed by Andrea Gise.

Francesca, Francesca

Francesca, Francesca uses the life of artist Francesca Woodman to delve into the struggles of the creative process. We combine slide projection and live performance to recreate Woodman's photos and to explore her signature merging of body and space.

Written and performed by Chelsea Duvall. Directed by Megan Lewicki.

Edinborough Fringe Festival.

Ghost Town

The play is based on story circles that the company held in Venice, CA, which focused on the changes in the Oakwood neighborhood, a historically black community. I was part of a group of professional artists who helped the community act out the story of the tensions between old residents and new development.

Written by Juliette Carillo. Directed by Rebecca Novick. Houses by Lynn Jefferies.

Cornerstone Theater Company's Summer Institute 2016.

Kentucky

When Hiro comes back to Kentucky from NYC for her little sister's wedding into a born-again christian family, she fights to find understanding for her family and herself.

Judgment of Fools

Judgment of Fools! A game show night in the theater where the fools lead us through the perils of social media, self image and race relations. The audience volunteers participation by shouting out suggestions, lively discussion and cameos onstage.

Written by Bernardo Cubria. Directed by Deena Selenow.

Atwater Village Theater.

Photos: Vincent Richards

Substrata

This dance uses bodies as tectonic plates. The dancers move as systems that roll over each other, find equilibrium and ultimately erupt. The costumes complete the landscape by creating abstract shifting forms and showing the bodies vulnerabilities beneath.

Choreographed by Andrea Gise.

REDCAT

When Spring Comes to Hills and Dales

When Spring Comes to Hills and Dales is an allegory of emptiness and isolation. Dallae, a Korean farm girl in the medieval Joseon dynasty, confronts the burdens of her emotionally stunted father and two demanding suitors while grappling with the grief of her mother's leprosy and exile. Our production team responded to Choi's poetic, imagistic stage directions by creating a material world that mirrored the complex and contradictory textures of Dallae's emotional landscape.